


how to play cards with a god of death

by katotastic000



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-08 08:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19103647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katotastic000/pseuds/katotastic000
Summary: Although the god of a new, ideal world rises in front of his eyes with the help ofhisnotebook, Ryuk is bored.And right now, Light is off, following his own footsteps as a detective, and the only one left at their headquarters is Matsuda.





	how to play cards with a god of death

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's good at joining fandoms _super hecking_ late!

Step 1: Prepare.

 

"Hey, human!" Matsuda flinched. He was the only human being in the room, everyone else was off doing some investigating adventure of their own and left the poor young detective behind to guard the headquarters, so it had to be him.  
He turned around. The Shinigami was slouched on the sofa Matsuda sometimes slept on, head supported on one hand and an apple spinning on the index finger of the other. Matsuda hoped that Ryuk wouldn't ask him to draw him like one of Jack's French girls, given his position.

"My name is Matsuda, actually", he mumbled. Ryuk didn't seem to care to listen. "What is it?"  
The monstrous creature fake-yawned and said, "I'm bored, human. Do something fun, make me laugh, entertain me!"  
_Is this an ancient god-like entity that has power over death or a super-annoying bored kindergartner?_

" Uh, how?" The shinigami waited a good two seconds, barely long enough to create an awkward silence. "If I knew how to keep myself busy, I wouldn't have asked, you know?", Ryuk replied with the calmest voice possible. Somehow it felt like mocking.  
Matsuda shrugged. "What do you usually do?" _"Watching a human wipe out sizable parts of humanity" isn't the answer Light would want the most, I think._ So Ryuk kept quiet and rubbed his temple with his supporting hand. "My boredom is chronic." "Oh. That's not nice", Matsuda mumbled.

He started to look around the room, eyes scattering across desks with monitors and empty coffee mugs. He nearly got to notice how lonely he and this place were if the passionate crunch of Ryuk's apple wouldn't have interrupted his thoughts. Then his view suddenly locked on one of his colleague's coat.  
"Hey, do you know how to play Uno?"

 

 

Step 2: Explain the rules.

 

"Well, then." Matsuda shook the small red box he held in his hands. Cards rattled inside of it. "This is Uno", he announced, gesturing around the box as if this was a product show-off. _Buy now, die later!_  
"U...no", Ryuk repeated under his breath, eyes glued on this outerworld artifact. As the detective moved his hands, his eyes followed.

 _Let's not tell Ryuk that Aizawa's daughter put that in his coat and he brought in on accident and forgot it here. Let's not tell Ryuk that this is a child's game either, let's just have our fun... with a shinigami... in an international serial murder investigation... with Uno._ Matsuda shuffled the cards while Ryuk observed his techniques. He showed much more interest than expected. Matsuda's (excruciating) shuffeling consisted of scattering all cards on the table and then gathering them into a stack again. He felt the embarrassed red on his cheeks but the death god didn't seem to mind.

The young policeman laid out five different cards: a green one showing a five, a black with a four-colored ellipse, one with two arrows, a shlashed zero and a plus two. He held up each card and explained their uses and effects. Though his posture started out as dedicated and professional (in Uno-measurement), he quickly began stammering and stuttering, knitting his eyebrows and fiddling with the rule sheet. Because Ryuk sat opposite to him, blinking at an unsettling rate of two times per minute, and pierced him with his cold, dead, protuberant eyes. When his razor-toothed grin parted to speak, Matsuda shuddered, though the shinigami's words gave no reason for that, "But I'm not able to wish for a black card?" The detective squinted, shook his head and asked himself, _"Who would even think about that?"_

 

 

Step 3: Enjoy!  
(Please don't get too focused on the game and be aware of your surroundings, you don't know what might happen behind your back.)

 

As it turned out, Ryuk was an excellent Uno-player. Matsuda struggled to keep all his cards in his fingers and none of them appeared to match the open card on their playing stack.  
To be fair, Uno wasn't very hard to master. Though Ryuk often saw chances to let a card slide down his sleeve or let one fall under the table, he never took them and rather watched the human frantically look up and down, in his cards and on the stack.

Soon, Matsuda counted sixteen cards on his hand and Ryuk counted two. The young man could swear that he'd at least drawn twenty-eight cards because of Ryuk's constant draw-twos and -fours. He had changed his strategy mid-game after he'd noticed the decreasing number of the shinigami's cards. He started to observe the other; _either I catch him cheating or making a mistake, I'm not going to lose to a myth!_

It was Ryuk's turn. He laid a blue six, _doesn't matter_ , but Matsuda was onto something. He waited, lurking like a wolf in the dark forest's shadow to surprise an unsuspecting deer. He felt every single second pass, hearing the ticks of his inner clock. _One, two_ , he counted, _three, four_.

Suddenly, he slammed his hand on the table. "Ha ha, you fool!", he exclaimed, voice swollen with victorious might. A grin bared his teeth. "You forgot to say 'Uno'." He opened up his metaphorical arms to welcome the sweet, sweet satisfaction of watching his opponent draw a card.  
Yet his smirk left Ryuk unaffected. Some moments of pure silence passed until the shinigami said, "I have been whispering 'Uno' the whole time, just in case."

Matsuda's jaw practically unhinged. "Hey, come on, that's not fair!", he protested. Luckily, he could stop himself from throwing the cards out of his hand as a frustration reflex. Ryuk let out a dry chuckle. "Your turn, Matsuda." "Guess what", he pouted, hiding his frown behind the impressive card-fan. "I have everything _except_ blue or six." With a sigh, he picked up another yellow five. _Number three of yellow fives, hooray._ "This time luck's on your side, I can't place one either." But luck switched sides fast, coming home to Ryuk again. His next card was a blue seven, perfect for his red seven. _Goodbye, Matsuda, this is my victory._

 

As Ryuk laid his last seven and finished his final move, Matsuda muttered, "Beginner's luck" and began scattering the cards on the table for round two.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading!


End file.
